Episode 291 - Michael Doukas of Epirus

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Hello everyone, my name is David Crowther and I'm here to tell you about my History of England podcast, a chronological retelling of the story of the English from start to finish.

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hello everyone and welcome to the History of Byzantium, episode 291,

Michael Dukas of Epirus.

One of the things I haven't really focused on so far in the narrative is the multicultural nature of the armies and administrations doing battle in in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade.

We did talk about Romans serving Carloyan and Latins fighting for the Nicene army, but if you want to get granular, then it gets really complicated.

For example, last time we closed our narrative with the Latins seizing a portion of Nicene territory.

The Emperor Henry sent troops in when he'd learnt how many of Lascaris' soldiers had perished in battle with the Turks.

What I didn't tell you is that when Henry went back to Constantinople, he left a Roman in charge.

A certain Georgius Theophilopolos became the Latin's governor in Western Anatolia.

Now Henry must have had serious faith in his loyalty, right?

Because a Roman, sitting in the territory of the new Roman Emperor, would have had serious motivation to defect.

But he didn't.

This was an era of incredibly complex relations between between individuals and groups.

Lots of Byzantines served the new Latin administration, while others had turned to Caloyan and remained loyal to him till the end.

Others could style themselves as true patriots because they happened to live in Nicaea already.

But what about those who lived at the other end of the empire?

What were they to do?

Michael Komninos Dukas was the illegitimate son of John Dukas, a high-ranking member of Manuil Komninos' court.

Michael would have had a forgettable career if it wasn't for the chaos which followed Manuil's death.

You see, Michael was a cousin of both Isaac Angelos and Alexios Angelos Komnenos.

So when the Angeloi took power, Michael's career was on a sudden upswing.

He eventually rose to be governor of the theme of Milassa and Melanudion, the southernmost theme in Western Anatolia.

Appointed by Isaac, he survived the transition to AAK's regime and seems to have done a reasonable job.

It was in the year 1200, as regional governors began to smell blood in the water, that Michael revealed his ambitious streak.

As AAK bounced from one crisis to another, he was dismayed to learn that Michael had gone into rebellion.

Ducas was pocketing the tax revenues and refusing to come to heel.

So AAK had to send troops south into Anatolia to take him down.

This they did, but Michael was smart enough to get out of Dodge and head for the plateau.

As we saw last week, the Sultans would always welcome Byzantine rebels.

They were more than happy to furnish them with some troops so that they could go on raiding expeditions up the Meander Valley.

Michael bided his time at Iconium until 1203, when he heard the news that Isaac Angelos and his son were back in power, thanks to the Fourth Crusaders.

He headed for Constantinople and was welcomed in by the new regime.

Like Alexius Angelos, Michael seems to have hit it off with Boniface of Montferad, so much so that once Constantinople had fallen, he was able to take up a position in Boniface's retinue.

So it was that Michael Komnenos Dukas came to Greece in the summer of twelve oh four, dutifully following his new master's orders.

Or so it seemed.

Michael, having betrayed one patron, was about to make a career out of treachery.

As Boniface headed south to conquer the Peloponnese, Michael slipped away and headed west.

He made his way to the town of Arta in Epirus, on the west side of Greece.

He may have had family connections there, and he now created a new one by marrying the daughter of a local notable and seizing control of the town.

From this humble beginning, Michael created an empire that would one day go on to control most of the south west Balkans, and threatened to capture Constantinople itself.

How exactly was this possible?

We have no historian for the Roman state that formed in Epirus, so we have no narrative of events within the new state, and no biography of Michael that can tell us what he may have been thinking.

So we have to work out what he was up to from what all the other powers in the region recorded about him.

His position in Boniface's camp allowed him to gather vital intelligence about the situation in the chaotic months after the sack.

What Michael saw in the very west of the empire was a complete absence of Latin troops.

Greece, as you may know, is split down the middle by the Pindus mountain range.

Byzantinists conventionally divide the region into Thessaly in the east and Epirus in the west.

Thessaly has Larissa and Athens and various other places that have played a part in our narrative, whereas Epirus really hasn't featured much at all.

It came up briefly during Bohemond's various attempts to grab a piece of Romania, but that's about it.

Corfu, the island off the coast, was a key port, but I doubt I've mentioned Joannina, Arta, or Naupactos more than once before.

This area was given to Venice in the partition carried out at Constantinople, but the Venetians didn't have the manpower or much interest in controlling the interior.

They took the bits they wanted, Corfu and Dirachium, much further north, and left it at that.

This meant that a vast swathe of Roman territory was without any designated ruler.

Michael had seen how few troops Boniface had taken to conquer the eastern half of Greece, and so was pretty confident that he could declare himself ruler of Epirus and face no resistance from the Latins.

And he was right.

Arta was a good choice for a capital, populated by Orthodox Romans, prosperous and shielded by the mountains from any imminent attack.

Like many towns in Greece, it had grown in people and wealth over the past two centuries, thanks to the peace which Basil II's victories had delivered.

Michael probably could have stayed in Arta, taken control of the territory west of the mountains, offered his fealty again to Boniface, and be done with it.

The Latins, as we'll see, would have accepted that, and Michael could have been a rich man, living in peace and obscurity for the rest of his days.

But Michael was much more ambitious than that.

His first priority was to secure the surrounding area, using the troops at Arta to force the people to accept him as their new ruler, and then marching north and south to do the same.

As in western Anatolia, most people were happy with this.

A Roman overlord meant business as usual.

Everyone could go on paying taxes and receive justice and protection in return.

Soldiers and clergymen could expect to receive a salary, and doubtless there was relief that they were not being subjected to Latin rule, as their cousins over in Thessaly and the Peloponnese were.

Also, as in Western Anatolia, a flood of refugees were pouring into Epirus from Constantinople and other areas of the Empire.

This brought talent and experience to Michael's side and allowed him to present himself as protector of the Roman people.

As soon as he'd got the situation under control, Michael began to expand his realm.

As Antony Caldellis says, his method for achieving this was through tactical brilliance on the battlefield and the strategic violation of oaths.

His forces began probing the territory to the north of Epirus, modern Albania, leading up to the key port of Dirachium.

Once he'd scouted the area thoroughly and clashed with Latin troops, he abruptly changed tack.

He contacted the Pope and the Latins and offered them his fealty.

As I hinted hinted earlier, the Westerners accepted this offer despite the fact that the Emperor Henry warned everyone that Michael was a liar and a traitor.

But what else could they do?

They didn't have the manpower to conquer all of Romania, and they didn't want an antagonistic state on their borders.

Henry demanded that Michael become his vassal and send his daughter to marry the Emperor's brother, both of which Dukas was happy to do.

He also offered his submission to Thessaloniki and promised to put his church under papal authority.

The Pope had conceded that there was no point in forcing Latin clergy on entirely Orthodox regions so long as they placed themselves under his jurisdiction.

This allowed Michael to gain Rome's approval without having to change anything about how his bishops operated.

And then finally in 1210, Michael signed an agreement with Venice, promising them tribute in exchange for holding their lands.

Michael seems to have understood the Latins very well.

Once they'd received an oath or an agreement, they left him alone.

And once he broke those agreements, they would not necessarily round on him angrily.

Instead, they would contact him as if he was in the club, drawing attention to his violation of a particular agreement.

This allowed him to break his oaths repeatedly without being attacked, the way a straight-up enemy like the Bulgarians would be.

Given the Latins had gone back on their word, repeatedly during the Fourth Crusade, Michael was showing that a Roman too could play this game.

These oaths depended on both parties living up to their end of the agreement, which, as we saw back when Bohemond seized Antioch during the First Crusade, always leads to differences of opinion.

Michael could claim that he was acting honourably within his understanding of the oath, and the Latins would be forced to debate that with him rather than simply declaring war and risk being seen as oathbreakers themselves.

It was in 1210 that Michael began to act.

He offered to ransom Alexius Angelos Comninos from Monferrat.

The Italians took the money and AAK arrived at Arta.

What exactly their relationship was, we can't be sure.

They were cousins, but Michael had rebelled against the former emperor ten years earlier, and Dukas now held older cards.

We know that AAK headed for Atalia and joined up with the Turks, but we don't know whether this was a coordinated plan with his cousin Michael.

It might have been.

Michael could present himself as serving the interests of the true Vasilevs, as in AAK.

Michael had not made himself emperor of Epirus.

In fact, we don't know if he had a title at all.

No source mentions an official title for him, though traditionally his state is called the Despotate of Epirus, implying that AAK had offered him the title of Despot.

But the actual sources we have show Michael simply identifying himself by his father's court title from back in Manuel's day.

Anyway, the following year, 1211, AAK attacked Nicaea, as we saw last week.

Had Michael sent him there to destabilise Theodore Lascaris?

Or was there a plan afoot for Alexius to conquer the east while Michael took the west?

Our sources are not entirely clear on what Ducas did at the same time.

He seems to have fought in person alongside the Latins against a Bulgarian raid into the territory of Thessalonica.

But in the aftermath, he marched into Thessaly, as in Greece west of the Pindus Mountains, lifting Larissa and a string of other towns from Latin hands.

Was he claiming these places as a reward for serving the Latins, or simply making a land grab?

Having violated his oath, Michael sent his apologies to the Emperor Henry, made excuses, and offered fealty again, but he wasn't giving up Larissa or any other territory he'd taken.

The Latins didn't have the men to oppose him, and so Henry ended up agreeing to this deal.

Michael seems to have been a master of playing the Latins.

Henry wrote home in exasperation, claiming that Dukas had betrayed him four times.

His behaviour is pretty reminiscent of various Norman adventurers who struck deals with Byzantium while simultaneously trying to carve out a piece of the empire for themselves.

Many Romans saw him as a liberator from Latin rule, but remember, he was not claiming any imperial title or office.

He was working strictly within the crusader network of authority, always seeking approval from Constantinople after he'd expanded his holdings.

But, sensing weakness in the Latin's acquiescence, Michael kept probing.

Over the next few years, his troops moved north, capturing Ochrid, the old centre of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and then in 1214 taking both Corfu and Irachium from the Venetians, a violation of almost every agreement he'd made with the Latin world.

And yet no one came to stop him.

He was operating too far from the centres of crusader power.

The Pope wrote in great irritation to Constantinople about this.

Adding salt to the wound, Italian mercenaries had crossed the Adriatic to serve under Michael's banners.

Rome had largely failed to convince the people of Western Europe that Byzantium was a true crusading battleground.

Once men dismissed the idea that killing fellow Christians would cleanse them of their sins, they were more than happy to take Michael's gold.

Dukas also recruited from the Vlak and Proto-Albanian populations in the region to augment his cavalry.

The following year, 1215, Michael was assassinated in his sleep for reasons that we can't reconstruct.

His brother, Theodoros, took control of the state and continued to rule it successfully.

So despite his own sad end, Michael and his family had succeeded in establishing a Roman state in the West Balkans which would go on to expand even further in the next decade.

We have no real sense of what Michael thought deep down.

Some historians paint him as a Roman nationalist freeing his countrymen from Latin rule, but his actions could easily be those of an opportunist who, like the Latins, just saw a chance to become a powerful lord and knew the way to gain popularity with his countrymen was to pose as their champion.

His brother would be so successful that he would contemplate taking Constantinople itself.

But again, that doesn't prove that that was the goal all along.

As we've seen throughout this season of narrative, the power vacuum which the sack opened up created all sorts of opportunities for individuals to carve out strange and improbable destinies.

By posing as the restorer and protector of the Orthodox Church, the Ducae did create a natural conflict with their counterparts at Nicaea.

Neither Michael nor his brother acknowledged Lascaris as their emperor.

They couldn't, so long as they operated within a Latin framework of authority.

But by the time they broke with the Latins, they were strong enough not to want to.

Their clergy had already begun to express this tension in their writing.

The Bishop of Naupactos, for example, was vocal in his criticism of Theodore Lascaris at Nicaea, denying that he was the Emperor of all Romans,

and criticising the Vasylefs for his peace treaties with the Latins and his overtures to the Papacy.

A bit ironic given that his own master was doing the same thing, but of course his overlord wasn't claiming to be the emperor.

It was only natural that the clergy of Epirus would feel that they, living independent of Latin control, should have a say in the future of the Orthodox Church, and would not just accept decisions made at Nicaea.

This independent streak was enhanced by the fact that many of the areas Dukas now controlled were subject to the autocephalous Archbishop of Bulgaria.

Back when Basil II put an end to the Bulgarian state, he allowed their church to remain somewhat independent of Constantinople's control.

Practically, the Romans still selected the archbishop, but he had a great deal of leeway within his see.

As we heard in our interview with Nathan Websdale, some of these bishops had dug into the even deeper past and claimed that their jurisdiction did not come from the defunct Bulgarian Empire, but from Justiniana Prima.

As you may recall, Justinian built a city near his birthplace, named after himself, of course, which was to become an archbishopric.

The city was abandoned a century later, but the memory of this dispensation was seized on to justify independence from the newly minted patriarch at Nicaea.

This division of east and west was going to be an added complication in the process of putting the shattered pieces of the Roman Empire back together.

Speaking of the shattered empire, next time we'll look around the rest of the Roman world.

Though we've now covered the main players, we haven't talked about the Venetians.

The merchantmen who'd made the Fourth Crusade possible were partners of the Latins and were busy seizing all the pieces of Romania that they valued.

We'll take a tour of these ports and islands along with the other places not yet taken by the Latins, Bulgarians, or the Romans of East and West.

While you're waiting for that, why not check out the History of England podcast?

David has been going even longer than I have, though to be fair, he is tackling the entire history of England and doing it with impeccable research and a unique sense of humour.

Check out the History of England wherever you get your podcasts or go to thehistoryofengland.co.uk.

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